Ethics in Public Speaking

Ethics in Public Speaking

I wrote this for the new edition of Essential Elements of Public Speaking, 7th edition (Hoboken, NJ: Pearson, 2021) but I thought it might be useful for any class in public speaking as a way of introducing the dimension of ethics and clarifying what is and what is not plagiarism.

Because your speech will have an effect on your audience, you have an obligation to consider

ethics—issues of right and wrong, or the moral implications of your message. When

you develop your topic, present your research, create persuasive appeals, and do any of

the other tasks related to public speaking, there are ethical issues to be considered (Bok,

1978; Jaksa & Pritchard, 1994; Johannesen, 1996; Neher & Sandin, 2007; Tompkins, 2011).

Think about your own beliefs and respond to the following situations in this quiz,

indicating whether each scenario is ethical or unethical.

1. _____ A speaker talks about evidence supporting the position advocated but omits

contradictory evidence. Or, similarly, a speaker cites testimony and gives the

person’s positive qualifications but omits the person’s negative disqualifications.

2. _____ A speaker reworks a quotation by a famous scientist, say, to support the

advocated position.

3. _____ A speaker uses a visual aid found on the internet.

4. _____ A speaker uses emotional appeals–for example, fear of getting ill or the desire

for status–to persuade an audience.

5. _____ A speaker crops a photo, omitting the part that contradicts the position

advocated.

6. _____ A speaker uses figures from a poll taken twenty years ago on a fast-changing

topic, but doesn’t mention when the poll was taken.

7. _____ A speaker copies a speech off the internet and presents it as original.

Here are some responses that most writers on and instructors of public speaking

and ethics would likely give. But, not all; some writers, instructors, and students may

disagree with one or all of these responses. All of these issues are raised again and covered

more fully throughout this text.

1. A speaker talks about evidence supporting the position advocated but omits

contradictory evidence. A speaker isn’t obligated to discuss evidence and argument

that does not support his or her position or to identify the negative qualities

of a witness’s testimony. That’s the opponent’s job. But, if the speaker deliberately

conceals relevant details that would influence the audience against the position

advocated, it would be unethical.

2. A speaker reworks a quotation by a famous scientist, say, to support the advocated

position. This would be unethical. Quotations need to be presented in full

and presented with the original intention of the author. However, a speaker may

change a quotation for special effect if it’s identified as such, as in cases of paraphrasing

or adding special emphasis.

3. A speaker uses a visual aid found on the internet. If this is for your class speech

(that is a non-profit, educational activity), it’s generally considered acceptable to

use it if you identify its origin. If you were to profit financially from the speech

with the visual aid, then you would need to secure permission.

4. A speaker uses emotional appeals–for example, fear or the desire for status–

to persuade an audience. Emotional appeals are frequently a large part of public

speaking, and especially persuasive speaking, and there is generally nothing

unethical about using emotional appeals. However, if the speaker uses emotional

appeals to cover up the absence of sound argument and evidence or to undermine

the thought processes of the listeners, then it would be unethical.

5. A speaker crops a photo, omitting the part that contradicts the position advocated.

This would be unethical because the speaker is preventing the audience from seeing

the truth as presented in the entire photo and as the photographer photographed it.

6. A speaker uses figures from a poll taken twenty years ago on a fast-changing

topic, but doesn’t mention when the poll was taken. This would be unethical.

The speaker is deliberately concealing information that is relevant to the audience

thinking clearly and logically about the issue.

7. A speaker copies a speech off the internet and presents it as original. This is clearly

unethical and illustrates one of the most important ethical concepts in all college

courses, plagiarism, a topic discussed in detail in Chapter 5, Researching Your Speech.

Plagiarism

Here's an interesting little article on plagiarism which, I think, would make for an interesting case study and class discussion.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/principal-i-accidentally-plagiarized-ashton-kutcher-speech-n1012591

Plagiarism

A somewhat different take on plagiarism (at least from the kind of plagiarism that we talk most about in our classrooms) is this little graphic in USAToday (12/29/09): In a survey of 444 workers, 29% said that a co-worker at some time took credit for his or her ideas. And perhaps more surprising, 51% did nothing about it.

Plagiarism

At NCA meetings and especially in the Basic Course meetings, the topic of plagiarism comes up frequently and is viewed as one of the great problems in education generally and in public speaking in particular. And then I see David Greenberg’s article, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Speech,” (NYTimes, 2/24/08, The Nation, 3), reminding me that Joe Biden—six-term Democratic Senator from Delaware and 2008 presidential candidate—“appropriated the content of a speech from the British politician Neil Kinnock—including biographical details, like being the first in his family to attend college, that didn’t apply to Mr. Biden. More uncredited borrowings surfaced, including phrases from Robert F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. Soon, the news that Mr. Biden had committed plagiarism in law school led him to end his campaign [in 1986].” And then I read about Columbia University’s Teacher’s College determining that Professor Madonna Constantine had committed “academic plagiarism” but was not prepared to take any disciplinary action—at least as of the last I read. Exactly what are the electorate and Columbia University telling us? They seem to be telling me that plagiarism is serious business but we needn’t do anything about it.

Plagiarism (Again)

Here's an interesting website on plagiarism with great examples.

Plagiarism

Here's a recent article on apparent plagiarism by a school superintendent. It gets more and more difficult, it would seem, to convince students not to plagiarize when educational and political leaders are apparently doing it as well.

Plagiarism

At NCA in San Antonio, one program I attended was devoted to plagiarism. Ably chaired by Sherry Morreale, the panel consisted of a number of young instructors and teaching assistants who focused largely on catching the plagiarist. So much attention seemed to have been devoted to identifying the plagiarism and punishing the plagiarist that I wondered if that was time well spent. Surely, plagiarism is a problem—in all college activities and not just in public speaking where it seems we focus—but if its identification and punishment absorbs so much of our time, where is the time to inspire students, prepare lectures, and to encourage those students who need our support?
It seems there are two issues which are often not separated. One issue is to explain to students what needs and what does not need citation and how to cite these sources in the oral speech and in the papers and outlines. That, it seems, is our province as teachers and one of the tasks we need to address thoroughly. The second issue is—and this one is never made explicit but it’s there in the background—to make our students ethical and moral people. This task, it seems, is more than most teachers have time for and of course it’s not something any teacher has been trained for. How do you make someone a good person? If we knew the answer to that, this world would not be in the shape it’s in.
Consider: from the time the child enters pre-school, the parents are helping with the child’s homework, craft projects, or whatever else the child has to turn in and that might reflect poorly on the parents or prevent the child from getting into the right prep school. And this pattern, it seems, continues throughout elementary and high school and when it comes to the college application, coaches are hired to guide what is said and how it is said and, in some cases I’m sure, to actually write the required essays. And, regardless of your political persuasion, you’ll have to admit we regularly see lying and cheating that has a lot more serious consequences than whether a student earns an “A” or an “F.” Unfortunately, the same is true in the large corporations where lying has destroyed the pension funds of millions of workers. So, why are we surprised when a college student buys a paper or speech from some online source or gets it from one of the club files? The student’s parents taught him or her that such behavior was acceptable and the political and business worlds demonstrate that such deceptions are standard operating procedure. To assume that we, as communication teachers, can take this student—with this very typical history and experience—and, in a one-semester course, turn him or her into a moral and ethical person, is nothing short of ridiculous.
There is another problem with this fixation on catching the cheater and that is that it changes you (the teacher). It refocuses your energies and makes you a police officer, a disciplinarian. Instead, that same energy could be used to help the young instructor become a great teacher. Unfortunately, each person (even the college instructor) has only so much energy; if you spend it on catching and punishing the unethical student, you have that much less to give to the ethical student who wants to learn and who needs your guidance. At the same time, your fixation on plagiarism establishes an atmosphere of distrust and suspicion. It’s similar to the situation in interpersonal relationships where one partner’s constant checking on the other creates an atmosphere that is guarded, accusatory, and just plain unhealthy and unpleasant.
All this is not to say that we should abandon efforts to identify plagiarism. It is a problem. But, it should never dominate the teaching experience.